More Helpful as Problem than Solution: Some Implications of Situating Dialogue in Classrooms

This volume is part of a broad convergence of interest in and enthusiasm for dialogue from across a variety of disciplinary and practical domains. The dialogic ideal is proposed as remedy for irrationality, false consciousness, multicultural strife, misunderstanding, civil society, and post-modern ethics. In education, dialogue is promoted as a means of improving teaching and learning (e.g. Alexander 2005; Nystrand, Gamoran, Kachur and Prendergast 1997), advancing democratic values and pupil voice (e.g. Fielding 2004, 2007), facilitating intercultural understanding (e.g. Delpit 1988), empowering the disenfranchised (e.g. Freire 1986), and cultivating thinking and argumentation (e.g. Fisher 2007; Osborne, Erduran and Simon 2004). Recent English policy endorses teaching through dialogue (e.g. DfES 2004; QCA 2005). In short, dialogue has come into fashion. Having crossed every other threshold, one is tempted to conclude, its entrance into our classrooms is merely a matter of time.